ABSTRACT Plastic pollution is a long-standing ubiquitous issue. Global use of plastics is continu... more ABSTRACT Plastic pollution is a long-standing ubiquitous issue. Global use of plastics is continuing to rise and there is increasing interest in understanding the prevalence and risk associated with exposure of wildlife to plastics, particularly in the marine environment. In order to facilitate an assessment of ingestion of plastics in seabird populations we developed a minimally invasive tool that allows for detection of exposure to plastics. Using a simple swabbing technique in which the waxy preen oil is expressed from the uropygial gland of birds, we successfully tested for the presence of three common plasticizers; dimethyl, dibutyl and diethylhexyl phthalate (DMP, DBP and DEHP respectively). These plasticizers are prevalent in the manufacturing of plastic end-user items which often end up in the marine environment. Using gas chromatography-mass spectrometry and protocols to reduce background contamination, we were confidently able to detect targeted plasticizers at low levels. The method described has broad applicability for detecting plastics exposure in wildlife at individual, population and species levels. Furthermore, the approach can be readily modified as needed to survey for plastics exposure in taxa other than seabirds. Applying the simple, minimally invasive approach we describe here is particularly appealing for detecting plastics exposure at population and species levels, it shows promise for quantification and it has no observed detrimental impacts to wildlife.This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.
ABSTRACT 1.Offsetting is emerging as an important but controversial approach for managing environ... more ABSTRACT 1.Offsetting is emerging as an important but controversial approach for managing environment–development conflicts. Biodiversity offsets are designed to compensate for damage to biodiversity from development by providing biodiversity gains elsewhere.2.Here we suggest how biodiversity offset policies can generate behaviours that exacerbate biodiversity decline, and identify four perverse incentives that could arise even from soundly designed policies.3.These include incentives for (i) entrenching or exacerbating baseline biodiversity declines, (ii) winding back non-offset conservation actions, (iii) crowding out of conservation volunteerism, and (iv) false public confidence in environmental outcomes due to marketing offset actions as gains.4.Synthesis and applications. Despite its goal of improving biodiversity outcomes, there is potential for best-practice offsetting to achieve the opposite result. Reducing this risk requires coupling offset crediting baselines to measured trajectories of biodiversity change and understanding the potential interaction between offsetting and other environmental policies.This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.
Plastic debris in the marine environment is widely documented, but the quantity of plastic enteri... more Plastic debris in the marine environment is widely documented, but the quantity of plastic entering the ocean from waste generated on land is unknown. By linking worldwide data on solid waste, population density, and economic status, we estimated the mass of land-based plastic waste entering the ocean. We calculate that 275 million metric tons (MT) of plastic waste was generated in 192 coastal countries in 2010, with 4.8 to 12.7 million MT entering the ocean. Population size and the quality of waste management systems largely determine which countries contribute the greatest mass of uncaptured waste available to become plastic marine debris. Without waste management infrastructure improvements, the cumulative quantity of plastic waste available to enter the ocean from land is predicted to increase by an order of magnitude by 2025.
Understanding and predicting the distribution of or- ganisms in heterogeneous environments lies a... more Understanding and predicting the distribution of or- ganisms in heterogeneous environments lies at the heart of ecology, and the theory of density-dependent habitat selection (DDHS) pro- vides ecologists with an inferential framework linking evolution and population dynamics. Current theory does not allow for temporal variation in habitat quality, a serious limitation when confronted with real ecological systems. We develop both
Detailed observation of the movement of individual animals offers the potential to understand spa... more Detailed observation of the movement of individual animals offers the potential to understand spatial population processes as the ultimate consequence of individual behaviour, physiological constraints and fine-scale environmental influences. However, movement data from individuals are intrinsically stochastic and often subject to severe observation error. Linking such complex data to dynamical models of movement is a major challenge for animal ecology. Here, we review a statistical approach, state-space modelling, which involves changing how we analyse movement data and draw inferences about the behaviours that shape it. The statistical robustness and predictive ability of state-space models make them the most promising avenue towards a new type of movement ecology that fuses insights from the study of animal behaviour, biogeography and spatial population dynamics.
ABSTRACT Plastic pollution is a long-standing ubiquitous issue. Global use of plastics is continu... more ABSTRACT Plastic pollution is a long-standing ubiquitous issue. Global use of plastics is continuing to rise and there is increasing interest in understanding the prevalence and risk associated with exposure of wildlife to plastics, particularly in the marine environment. In order to facilitate an assessment of ingestion of plastics in seabird populations we developed a minimally invasive tool that allows for detection of exposure to plastics. Using a simple swabbing technique in which the waxy preen oil is expressed from the uropygial gland of birds, we successfully tested for the presence of three common plasticizers; dimethyl, dibutyl and diethylhexyl phthalate (DMP, DBP and DEHP respectively). These plasticizers are prevalent in the manufacturing of plastic end-user items which often end up in the marine environment. Using gas chromatography-mass spectrometry and protocols to reduce background contamination, we were confidently able to detect targeted plasticizers at low levels. The method described has broad applicability for detecting plastics exposure in wildlife at individual, population and species levels. Furthermore, the approach can be readily modified as needed to survey for plastics exposure in taxa other than seabirds. Applying the simple, minimally invasive approach we describe here is particularly appealing for detecting plastics exposure at population and species levels, it shows promise for quantification and it has no observed detrimental impacts to wildlife.This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.
ABSTRACT 1.Offsetting is emerging as an important but controversial approach for managing environ... more ABSTRACT 1.Offsetting is emerging as an important but controversial approach for managing environment–development conflicts. Biodiversity offsets are designed to compensate for damage to biodiversity from development by providing biodiversity gains elsewhere.2.Here we suggest how biodiversity offset policies can generate behaviours that exacerbate biodiversity decline, and identify four perverse incentives that could arise even from soundly designed policies.3.These include incentives for (i) entrenching or exacerbating baseline biodiversity declines, (ii) winding back non-offset conservation actions, (iii) crowding out of conservation volunteerism, and (iv) false public confidence in environmental outcomes due to marketing offset actions as gains.4.Synthesis and applications. Despite its goal of improving biodiversity outcomes, there is potential for best-practice offsetting to achieve the opposite result. Reducing this risk requires coupling offset crediting baselines to measured trajectories of biodiversity change and understanding the potential interaction between offsetting and other environmental policies.This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.
Plastic debris in the marine environment is widely documented, but the quantity of plastic enteri... more Plastic debris in the marine environment is widely documented, but the quantity of plastic entering the ocean from waste generated on land is unknown. By linking worldwide data on solid waste, population density, and economic status, we estimated the mass of land-based plastic waste entering the ocean. We calculate that 275 million metric tons (MT) of plastic waste was generated in 192 coastal countries in 2010, with 4.8 to 12.7 million MT entering the ocean. Population size and the quality of waste management systems largely determine which countries contribute the greatest mass of uncaptured waste available to become plastic marine debris. Without waste management infrastructure improvements, the cumulative quantity of plastic waste available to enter the ocean from land is predicted to increase by an order of magnitude by 2025.
Understanding and predicting the distribution of or- ganisms in heterogeneous environments lies a... more Understanding and predicting the distribution of or- ganisms in heterogeneous environments lies at the heart of ecology, and the theory of density-dependent habitat selection (DDHS) pro- vides ecologists with an inferential framework linking evolution and population dynamics. Current theory does not allow for temporal variation in habitat quality, a serious limitation when confronted with real ecological systems. We develop both
Detailed observation of the movement of individual animals offers the potential to understand spa... more Detailed observation of the movement of individual animals offers the potential to understand spatial population processes as the ultimate consequence of individual behaviour, physiological constraints and fine-scale environmental influences. However, movement data from individuals are intrinsically stochastic and often subject to severe observation error. Linking such complex data to dynamical models of movement is a major challenge for animal ecology. Here, we review a statistical approach, state-space modelling, which involves changing how we analyse movement data and draw inferences about the behaviours that shape it. The statistical robustness and predictive ability of state-space models make them the most promising avenue towards a new type of movement ecology that fuses insights from the study of animal behaviour, biogeography and spatial population dynamics.
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Papers by Chris Wilcox